Card statements fail to give debt details, researchers find

Credit card consumers have difficulty finding details about their debt on statements, results of an international study show.

Statements for consumers in 11 countries including the U.S., U.K and Australia failed to meet the study’s minimum acceptable usability target level of 81 percent.

“The only information that can be found reliably on the statements we tested is the name of the organisation sending it, and the person it is addressed to. Everything else falls well below an acceptable level,” said David Sless, chief executive officer of the Communication Research Institute, an Australia-based non-profit group, according to a released statement.

The tasks, set out in the statement, which participants in the study were asked to execute included:

- identify who the statement is from and who it is for;

- find and explain the credit limit and the available credit remaining after purchases;

- find and explain the interest that applies to purchases and how much interest has been applied for the statement period; and

- find and explain any payment due, and how to make that payment.

In other industries, such as the pharmaceutical industry, the use of good information design has worked,” Sless said. “Easily understood products gain market share, and with well formulated regulation in the background, the majority follow suit.

The data is being sought by providers of services and regulators, the group said. The information will also be used by the Institute to “inform future redesign projects within the industry.”

Below are results of the study as published today in a released statement:

Final results showing overall performance from each country where minimum acceptable usability target level is 81 percent.